Thursday, February 14, 2008

Fast Loot System

Lately I've been thinking about a raid just using Blizzard's built-in loot system. Set a threshold of Epic and just go:

1. Want the item for your main set - roll Need.2. Want the item for your off-set or sidegrade - roll Greed.3. Don't want the item - Pass.4. If everyone passes, an enchanter scoops it up and disenchants the epic.

I know this system would probably end in drama and tears, but it would be so fast and easy. You could spend more time actually doing stuff, and less time handing out loot. Yeah, someone might win two items over someone else, but it will average out over time.

The biggest issue would be people who raided for different amounts of time. A guild would have to deal with attendance issues apart from the loot system. But that might be a good idea anyways, rather than relying on your loot system to motivate people to show up.

This works in 5 mans, but falls apart in 25 mans. My guild used to do this pre-tbc and it worked fine. But we never could get consistent people to come to raids. If someone got lucky enough to win what they wanted, they'd stop coming for raids when we were doing bosses they didn't need. Its human nature not to want to waste time for no gain. Sure, some good-hearted people stuck in there regardless of gear, but you can't count on all 25 people being like that. Since we switched to a dkp system 3-4 months ago, we've blown through content much quicker due to consistency in the members that attend raids.

You're right it should even out over time, but I've have far too many experiences where it doesn't. Besides... you then have the possibility that you have these few super toons and if they die or aren't online, your raid/guild can't do anything.

There's far too many goods and bads about every loot system available. In a perfect world, you would probably give the item to the person who gets the biggest benefit from it, but then there's raid attendance, effort in gear, is that person too new to the guild, blah, blah, blah to consider.

That's how CareBearCLub on Velen mostly does it. sometimes we break from the system but it works really well. and honestly- if people aren't there enough to get the loot they shouldn't be expecting to progress so fast. you get what you work for.

Theoretically, it's all you need to do for everybody to get what they need. In reality, people are greedy and will "Whoops, accidentally hit need. Oh well, guess i'll just sell it for 15g". Even people who don't mean to could accidentally do this.

The way my guild used to do this is Master Looter. "X drop, roll for main spec." If nobody rolls, "X drop, roll for alt spec". If nobody rolls, we give to me (the enchanter) to disenchant. We're working on a DKP system now, but it works for smaller guilds.

Something which also needs to be remembered is trust, I remember hearing that there was a warglaive which was "ninjaed" on a realm a while back, by a rogue who was only doing his first or second run with the particular guild

They were using a free for all loot system and simply decided that he wanted the warglaive even though he wasn't necessarily ment to be rolling on it.

Can anyone really say that they would trust everyone within a 25 man raid to not do that if an item which they really wanted dropped?

Afterall, if you were thinking about joining another guild or perhaps thinking about transferring to another realm.... is there anything to stop you from doing that (Assuming you have the necessary lack of morals to ninja something in the first place).

But yeah, personally I think that loot council is potentially the most fair loot system, but then it's also potentially the most corrupt system aswell.

This is how my guild does it, and for the most part it works. Of course, for the most part we have courteous members who will pass if they've already won an item during the same evening. Our only rule is if 2 of the same tier token drops then everyone passes and we do manual rolls.

I love the idea of a loot council. With my guild, every officer has complete trust in each other to dish loot out fairly. The problem with this is not a corrupt system per se, but more along the lines of non-council members noticing signs of favoritism that aren't actually there. Since everybody in the raid is important to our guild, we don't want to harbor any ill feelings, even if they're misguided.

There's too many factors that go into loot for need/greed/pass to encompass them all. Say item X drops, and it's a minor upgrade for me but a major upgrade for someone else. I'd love to have it, but am more than happy to pass on it for the other member.

The whole reason for dkp is to remove much of the randomness in loot. Sure, after an infinite number of runs the /random system will even out. In a finite number of runs it will NOT even out. You'll have that one person who wins all 10 items they roll on and the other person who lost all 10 items they roll on.

It works fine for 5-mans and other lesser content, but when you get one shot a week at getting an item with a 15% drop chance, there's no worse feeling than having the new recruit out-roll someone who's been there for the past two months dying to get it.

We also use this exact loot system for ZA timed runs. We explain it all to people before we start (or over vent during the trash to the first boss), and we don't waste a lot of time handing out loot when time is a valuable commodity. We have one person designated to pick up the item to DE if everyone passes.

But in 25-mans, I think a more long-term loot system is necessary. Not exactly to ensure fairness in distributing the loot, but as a way of encouraging people to attend regularly, so that they are earning something even if the loot they want doesn't drop.

"A guild would have to deal with attendance issues apart from the loot system. But that might be a good idea anyways, rather than relying on your loot system to motivate people to show up."

I am a huge, huge proponent of this regardless of the system people choose. Loot distribution breaks when you ask too much of it -- creating incentives and consequences for attendance elsewhere is vital to keeping a functional process. Anything that requires a degree in accounting to administrate would, in my definition, not be functional. =P

Separating those two systems also helps to decouple loot and reward -- when those ideas are too closely linked in peoples' minds, I've found they're much more prone to create the infamous loot drama. Because, naturally, who doesn't have a little tendency to think that they're always the most deserving of being rewarded...